Birth of Evil
by RobbyA
Summary: A prequel story to the Resurrection of Rose.
1. Blood Countess

_Everything has its _origin.

* * *

Hundreds of years ago in the country of Hungary, a young girl found herself in a tight fit. A foreigner from another country orphaned at an immature age, she snuck her way onto a ship heading for this new land. She got in through the goods shipped for Hungary. She hid in a box of rice and remained in the box until the ship officially made land at the docks. As the box was getting lifted out, one of the crew members noted how the box felt lighter.

"Sir, do you feel that there is something peculiar about this box?" a crewmate asked another.

"This is just a box of rice, nothing more, nothing less."

The girl kept herself deathly quiet. She was able to breathe through the small holes in the top of the box. The two men inquired more on the now lightweight box until they were informed that the nobles were waiting impatiently for their deliveries. Lest they faced spending a night evolving to weeks in their "torture chamber," they had better forget their complaints on the box and go. The girl was tossed here and there around the empty box. She felt herself getting picked up and tossed onto the back of a carriage. With a whipping of the rope and the horses' neighs, she was off.

The journey was long and bitter. The post-digested rice within the young girl's stomach sloshed around, compelling her to almost vomit up the contents of her bowels. There were a few pitstops on the way. While the men were distracted, the girl quietly abandoned the box to steal crumbs of food and to relieve herself. There was a time when she was so blocked up from the non-nutritious food, she almost missed the carriage's exit. Sleeping inside of the box was bothersome and discomforting, but to her, she thought it was better than sleeping in the dead of winter in alleyways with hardly anything to cover her for warmth.

The time for the permanent delivery came short of 1 PM in the evening. Sunlight peaked into the minuscule holes, tickling the young girl's eyes. During one of their pitstops, the girl had collected a small knife and tentatively carved a hole through the box around a time the traders were distracted. The sights fascinated her. In front of her was a castle. It was one of the Gothic build popular at the time and unspeakably massive. It had a long history behind it: before its remodeling, it had a horseshoe shape and a Romanesque style. The men stopped at the entrance of the castle and began unloading their massive hauls.

"About time you had gotten here" a feminine voiced rang out with a clear hint of malice.

* * *

The men gulped nervously and placed the packages in front of the woman. Their fingers flailed around from the anxiety, but they started to open each one. One box contained silk. Another one contained tea that was shipped in from one of the neighboring countries. The last one was the box of rice. The men wrapped their fingers around the lid of the box, pulling on it slowly. The girl reacted immediately firmly holding onto the bottom.

"What is this!?" one of the crewmates yelled. He and his partner wrestled with the lid, but the girl refused to allow the box lid to budge. They both situated themselves on opposite ends of the box and gave it one, bold heave-ho. The girl was forced out of the box, landing on her face. The men and the noblewoman stood there in surprise.

"You!" the second crewmate yelled, "you ate her rice, hadn't you!?" He took hold of the girl's black hair, bending her neck backward. She writhed from his grip.

"No, no, please, sir," the girl begged, "I was just so hungry!"

The noblewoman held her hand up, alarming the men. She gave them a deadly glance as toxic as the worse of known poisons; worse than any cyanide. They shivered and released the girl. The girl was frightened by the noblewoman as well. But when the woman made a motioning gesture for her to get at her right hand, she obeyed her order wordlessly.

"I relieve both of you from your duties."

She sent them away back on horseback. She gazed at the young girl, eyeballing her curiously. The young girl felt violated by the noblewoman, even if she was simply observing her. After what felt like endless sessions of quietly interrogating her, a half-smile formed on the woman's face. "You must have come from such a far land," she finally said. Some of her servants walked into the room, and she ordered them to stage a grand feast.

"Do you have a name, if I may inquire of you?" she asked again.

"My Mom named me Rose after her favorite flower," the girl said. She was being directed into the dining room by the servants.

"Delighted to meet you, Rose," the woman said, "you must be starving after such a long journey." She sat Rose at the foot of the dining table. Huge slabs of meat were flopped down in front of the young girl alongside large vegetables like potatoes and beets. Rose found herself salivating at the mouth. "Well, eat up; I'm more than happy to have you in the family."

* * *

The woman identified herself as the countess Elizabeth Bathory and throughout a few months, she raised Rose alongside her other children. Rose found herself playing along with her stepsiblings in the courts of the Čachtice Castle and growing to enjoy the good life. Oftentimes, she saw Elizabeth send for peasant women to attend her massive feasts or to become employees at her castle. But for the faintest of reasons, Rose never saw these women again. Dozens of young virgin women would be invited to the castle with the promise of employment that they hoped to use to provide for their families. And yet, Rose never saw them during the day nor did Bathory's staff ever acknowledge that they were missing, Hundreds of women couldn't have just vanished overnight? Could they?

It lasted for about a year until Bathory decided to fill Rose in on her secrets. Rose was around 12 at the time. She was fondly looking out of a window at the water across when Bathory entered the room. Rose's eyes lit up.

"You're saying that there's a secret room that you wanted to show me?"

Bathory nodded. "I believe that you are ready for it."

She took her down into the basement; a rusted lock was firmly placed on the door, forbidding entrance into it from anyone other than Bathory. She moved her hair back and drew out a key from a necklace. She held the key in front of Rose's face. It was a golden instrument. Bathory inserted the key into the keyhole of the lock and turned it clockwise. A small click emitted, and the room droned open. A putrid smell leaped out of the room assaulting Rose's nostrils. Bathory smiled. "Welcome to my personal playhouse."

Inside the room, several of the peasant women that were promised jobs were hanging from chains. Multiple women were strung up, getting vivisected with their guts and entrails being exposed. One such woman was a 16-year-old whose lower intestines were wrapped around a spinning wheel. Attached was a crank that from the slightest push, the woman's entrails would be ripped out painfully and as slowly as Mrs. Bathory pleased.

Other women had the skin of their backs ripped off because of nail-laced whips. The crudely placed nails glistened in the sunlight from the remnants of blood that did not dry. The faces of 10 women were grotesquely removed along with other segments of their bodies. Rose looked at Bathory with closer inspection. A tinge of red was on her bottom lip.

"Rose," Bathory began, "what if I were to tell you that there was a way to live forever?"

Live forever? Everything felt like a dream sequence from here on out. The women were moaning in pain, with some strange vapor rising out of their mouths. Bathory walked over to one of the women. Seeing that she had a wound on her arm, Bathory knelt and pushed the wound in. The woman screamed again in pain. More ghostly vapor flowed from her mouth. Bathory hungrily lapped up the substance as the woman's eyes illuminated. The woman's cries gradually faded before she crumbled down into a bloodied heap.

"This, Rose, is the secret to long life."

* * *

Rose was intimidated at first, but she was also intrigued by the whole notion of living forever. Bathory beckoned her to lie down on the floor while she walked across the room with a jar in hand. It also contained that gaseous substance. She got on top of Rose and opened the jar.

"You see, Rose," she said turning the jar counterclockwise, "I delight myself in torturing these women because my society devalues them making it easier for me to spirit them away and indulge in my sinful habits. When one of my servants got her accursed blood on my hand, the blood reverted my aging body. From that day onward, I devoted myself to achieving eternal beauty."

She tipped the jar onto Rose's lips. "These women had this strange mental power when I killed them. I found myself accidentally ingesting the vapor and my body felt alive. To my knowledge, no one else made this life-altering discovery, and I proudly call it 'steam.' "

Rose breathed in the steam. The pain was excruciating as she felt her body contorting between the past and the present. She felt younger while she was still mentally 12. Lady Bathory was right: she felt invigorated. "Repeat after me, Rose," Bathory said. She recited some cryptic words apparently; she came up with on the spot:

"_Lodsam hanti, we are the chosen ones. Cahanna risone hanti, we are the fortunate ones. Sabbatha hanti, sabbatha hanti, sabbatha hanti. We are the True Knot, and we endure. What is tied may never be untied."_

And then it was over. Bathory removed herself from Rose allowing her to regain composure. As they exited the room of horrors, Bathory grabbed hold of Rose's arm and leaned her close to her face to meet her at eye level. "I want you to succeed me, Rose, but I will inform you that if you as much as to share what I have done with anyone else, I will not only call you a liar, but I will condemn you to the same pain and torment those women downstairs have faced at my hands. Understand?"

* * *

Rose gulped and nodded fervently at her demand. She and Bathory spent years luring women into the torture room and killing them in ways indescribable. There was one that was like Rose in that she was also an orphan who was strapped to the spinning wheel.

"Please, let me go," the orphan sobbed, "I just want to live."

Rose looked at the woman in observation. She knew what it was like to be alone and having to rummage for scraps. It was something that she would dear not to even consider reliving that nightmare. And yet, Rose slashed her throat with a brandished knife. The blood gushed out like a geyser. Fresh blood spewed in her face. Rose licked the blood around her lips. "Cherry," she thought.

While most of her assisting Bathory was largely under the threat of death, Rose found herself enraptured by the idea of living long and eating well. Soon, she found herself being elevated above mankind, much like in Bathory's case. It remained that way until one eventful day.

Rose was in the town when news got out about Bathory's actions. She had gotten lazy with her murders and in her hunger, she targeted noblewomen. In 1611, Bathory was found guilty of over 80 murders yet escaped execution by getting locked away in a room of her own castle. Rose had vanished during the sentencing, remaining gone for three years. Bathory was slipping away because of her deprival of steam. Food was still being served to her, but nevertheless, her dreams of eternal life were botched.

Sitting in her empty room, Bathory's eyes grew heavy and she began to drift off to sleep. A clicking stirred her awake. The door opens, she saw her adopted daughter Rose standing there. At first, she was relieved. "I've been waiting for so long, Rose," Bathory exclaimed, "free me and together we will rule all."

Rose shook her head. "Sorry, but I have better ideas for you."

A scream sent the guards running up the stairs. When they got there, they saw Bathory as a pile of dust. Rose had since vanished back into thin air.


	2. Barry the Chunk

Hot off the press in New York came word of another child murder committed by an anonymous perpetrator. After a recent spree that left 5 children dead, the latest victim was a young girl named Kora Miller. Her body was found by a fisherman who spotted the body in a narrow grave on the shoreline. She had marks around her neck implicating that the killer had strangled the life out of her. The other victims had also been young girls ranging from the ages of 12-14. The girls were speculated to have been lured prior to their deaths as it was given, they had vanished oftentimes while returning home from school.

Barry Smith awoke one Monday morning having slept in his clothes from yesterday. Yawning, Barry rubbed the sleep from his eyes before stretching his arms. He got up from his bed and walked towards his cabinet; pulling a drawer open, he pulled out a large book on which it said "Memories." He chuckled deeply to himself about the contents of the book. Opening it revealed a few photos of the girls described as being the victims of the city's serial killer. He reached into his shirt pocket producing a picture of Kora. He was given a missing person flyer when he was buying groceries at the store.

"Welcome to your new home, Kora," he laughed. He flipped the photo over and licked it before pressing it on a blank page of the memory book. From there, he went about his daily life: he'd go to his favorite table at the city bar and drink to his heart's content when the news about his killings blared out on the television. He was laughing in a decidedly loud tone of voice. This earned him some looks of disgust from other customers. Two large men in black leather coats, greased back hair, and tattoos.

* * *

"You got a problem, sick fuck?" one of the men yelled.

Barry scoffed at the two men. "I'm just here havin' a good time. I do not appreciate you two bozos coming in and killing my buzz!"

The man gritted his teeth. "Well, we do not appreciate you laughin' your ass off at some poor girly's death!"

Barry ignored the two men and reached for his cup. The second tattooed man smacked it out of his hand, and it shattered on the floor. Barry looked at the two men in irritation. "What the fuck, guys!?"

"Better get the fuck out of this bar if ya know what's good for ya," the first man said.

Barry sighed. "Alright, alright, the message is clear." He slowly got up from his seat. "Just let me pay the tab, and I'll be on my…"

He suddenly took a shard of the broken glass and attacked the second crony in savage fashion. He slit his throat and kicked him squarely in his groin. The other man initially had little time to react, but he became unfazed and tackled the glass shard out of Barry's hand. He held him firmly in a neck hold. "Now you die, son of a whore!"

Barry was losing consciousness quickly from the larger man's grip. His vessels were rupturing in his eyes making them bloodshot. With his face turning a purple hue, Barry impulsively bites his assailant's arm. The man yelped and released his grip of him. Barry scurried for the door only to get knocked back down by a chair.

More men had come to lay a beatdown on him. He was overpowered and outnumbered. Like a pack of wolves, they attacked him breaking him down slowly. One stomped on his ribs until they cracked underneath his weight. Two others pulled his arms up and firmly held onto him so two men could take turns kicking him repeatedly in his stomach. They left him with a couple of broken ribs and a swollen over eye and missing teeth. To add insult to injury, one of the men picked him up by the seat of his pants and flung him out the door.

"And stay out!"

* * *

Barry found himself despondent, lying on the street with broken body parts. The pain was still unbearable; he was blacking out quickly. The blackness was filling his sights: before fainting, he could've sworn that he saw a tall woman with a hat walking towards him.

Upon awaking, Barry found himself in the woods. A few trailers were surrounding him with a bonfire in the center of it all. He looked down and saw that bandages were wrapped around his wounded body. He was slowly taking his surroundings in when he heard someone speak up.

"Good. You're awake now."

He turned around with a jolt. It was that same woman he saw prior to falling unconscious. With her were an older man and a bespectacled one. The woman had this weird appeal working for her: she was somewhat reminiscent of those women he's heard about from the Roaring Twenties – those flappers if he remembered correctly from his high school days – she was a lively woman, barefoot, and wearing a silk top-hat. She had a small smile on her face.

"Who the fuck are you guys?" Barry finally asked.

"Well, that's an insensitive thing to say after I saved your life," she pouted. She had her arms crossed to further the notion that she was offended. She crouched down at the bonfire and watched the flames dance around. "I'm Rose. Rose the Hat, by the way. The old man is Grampa Flick and the glasses man is Walnut."

"Well, I guess that's going too far," Barry acknowledged. He looked at the two men gathered around the fire as well. They shot daggers towards him, intimidating him. Rose held up her hand without looking up from the fire. They took the hint and eased their tension.

"Tell me more about that girl you killed."

* * *

Barry's eyes widened in shock. He was convinced that he was completely alone when he lured her into his car; tortured her for hours while blissfully aware that her parents were worried sick about her whereabouts. How he stepped on her body over and over making sure that her final moments were the most excruciating among doing other unsightly things to her before squeezing the last ounce of life within her with his bare hands. And yet, somehow these people somehow discovered his sins. Should he try to kill them all here and then so they wouldn't try to send him to the cops?

"Barry, you're thinking too hard on this," Rose said at last.

"I didn't even introduce myself yet," Barry said, "how did…"

She held her hand up again and walked towards him. He was still sore from his beatdown, but he tried to fend for himself under the assumption that she would do something funny to him. However, said trick never arose. Rose chuckled a bit at the confused man.

"We won't call the police," she said, "We feel that you can help us."

"How?" Barry inquired. Clearly, this bitch was crazier than he was he thought.

Rose leaned down looking at him directly in the face. "What if I were to tell you that I knew a way you could eat well and live a little longer?"

Barry's curiosity peaked. After some time, recuperating, Barry felt well enough to share some of his life story. He had a pretty bad upbringing with a father who beat him; a mother who up and left him one day to deal with his demon of a father. When he turned 16 was where it became more deplorable. He kidnapped and raped two girls before killing them and discarding their bodies. He was captured and spent a larger portion of his teenage life in juvenile detention. Upon getting out for "good behavior," he began to lure other victims.

"That's most of it," Barry said in disinterest, "I just hate children. Those little bastards have no idea what it's like to have to struggle to survive as I did. Self-absorbed, foolish, miserable miscreants."

* * *

Rose and the others tentatively listened. They were unaffected by the story Barry had told them. Which made sense because they had long forfeited their humanity for the sake of longevity. Barry felt somewhat happy to share his plights with the group. He could've come to see them as a family had it not been for his inability to understand emotions like "love" or "affection," but nevertheless, he was satisfied.

"So, Rose," Barry began, "tell me how you came up with this live forever bullshit?"

"I am over 100 years old and Grampa Flick and Walnut were two men I met during some of the nation's major events." She drew a cigarette out of her mouth and inhaled deeply. "Some children are more special than others. They have a special power that seldom possesses."

She blew the smoke into Barry's face making him cough. "It's called steam."

"Steam?" Barry asked tilting his head in curiosity.

"Take this," she said. She handed him a canister; he looked at it in curiosity and opened it. The steam began to come out through the holes in the lid. He was unsure of what to do next. "Breathe in," she said.

Barry did as he was told. He was suddenly keeled over in pain. His body was rapidly contorting and spasming. What the hell was this substance? Was what Rose gave him a type of poison and he was now being choked to death? But at the same time, he never felt more alive than he did. He heard Grampa Flick say some cryptic words about these beings known as the True Knots and Rose and Walnut chanting. Whatever drug he was on, he was flying high, convinced that nothing could take him down.

Rose smiled after the ritual ended. "And you can live as long as you can. But we need you to locate children for us." She dropped her hands to the side. "I'm afraid a lot of pain will play a part in acquiring more steam."

Barry could care less about torturing children as that was something he was already doing long before Rose came to him with the option. A wicked smile spread across his face. If it meant that he would become even more powerful than he could've hoped for, it was worth breaking a few eggs to make an omelet, or in this case, kill a few kids to become immortal.

"I'm in."


End file.
